Jim Hightower: Bush's Economic Plan Worked

[FlyingSquirrel]

http://www.jimhightower.com/node/6320

When George W. first ran for president, he was asked what his economic plan might be. "We ought to make the pie higher," he answered. People laughed, thinking it was another of his verbal stumbles. Seven years later, we can see that he was serious. His plan was to put our national economic pie on the highest shelf, so that only the elites can reach it.

Now that the economy is falling into an "official" recession to go along with the unofficial recession that ordinary folks have long been experiencing, even the economists and politicians can see that Bush's plan worked just as he wanted.

[Atman]

1. And when the richies drop bits of the pie off that high shelf...

...some of it will land on people, thereby putting "food on their families."

.

[FlyingSquirrel]

3. HA!

Good one.

[midnight]

2. I don't really understand all the business of what a recession

will mean. But I sure can feel it. My money buyes less and less.

[FlyingSquirrel]

4. I don't think there will be a recession.

I think we're gonna skip that and go straight to the depression. And it'll happen pretty quick.

[Atman]

5. How old are you?

Just curious. Did you live through the 70's recession, with gas rationing and 20% interest rates? I was just a teenager, but I remember it well. Fortunately, my mom re-married a dude just for his money to make sure us kids were taken care of, so it didn't impact us too much, but I had a lot of friends who were hurting. And the gas rationing was a bitch...spending half the day in line to buy a max of 8 gallons, only on odd or even days of the week depending upon the last digit of your license plate.

We probably NEED shit like that again to wake some asses up!

.

[Demeter]

7. That's Hyperinflation (early stages)

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job.

Depression is when everyone loses his job and his home.

So we have all of the above simultaneously. Lucky us.

[bulloney]

8. We're in a hyperinflation period now, but the gov't is cooking the stats.

Has anyone compared prices at the grocery store from two years ago? Things like milk, ground beef,eggs are up 50-100% from a couple of years ago. Gasoline has nearly doubled. Health insurance goes up at a double digit rate every year. And the government's inflation report says prices are only increasing around 3% annually. It costs me twice as much to fill up my propane tank than it did 3 years ago.

I don't claim to be a math student, but when vital things like health care, energy and food go up at the rates we've seen in the past 2-3 years, don't insult my intelligence with this 3% inflation shit.

Who's to say the economy has not contracted several times in the past 15 years? During the first Bush Administration, I remember the Wall Street Journal announcing that the government would begin measuring the state of the nation's economy via the Gross DOMESTIC Product, instead of the Gross NATIONAL Product. When they did it, the economy grew under the GDP, but would have shown a decline under the GNP.

[FlyingSquirrel]

10. YES.

The price of eggs, milk, bread, ........ It's all going up. I can't even imagine how they are managing to state a 3% inflation rate. We all know it's more like 15% (very low estimate)

[mzmolly]

6. Love Jim Hightower,

wish he would have supported Gore. :(

[Felix Mala]

9. His future employer, Carlyle Group, is buying up bargains left and right.